You`re Irish? These Handmade Books Will Make The Eyes Tear And

Mouth Water

March 14, 1985|By Carol Haddix.

I`m drawn to things Irish--maybe it`s the Irish blood in me. Nothing has captivated me quite as much as a set of handmade Irish books that recently arrived in the office. ``Traditional Irish Cooking`` consists of three small booklets, hand-lettered, loosely bound and nestled in a slim case. The man behind the attractive books is Malachi McCormick, the owner of the Stone Street Press in Staten Island, N.Y. He fills each booklet with traditional Irish recipes such as colcannon, brown bread, brotchan foltchep (leek and oatmeal soup) and others that have been handed down in his family for 120 years.

In addition to the recipes, Irish food proverbs dot one of the books:

``Don`t make little of your dish, for it may be an ignorant fellow who judges it.``

``Good humor comes from the kitchen.``

``Hunger is a good sauce.``

``Three bad habits: Drinking the glass, smoking the pipe and scattering the dew late at night.``

The set includes ``Irish Traditional Soups,`` ``Irish Bread and Cake``

Stockholders: What`s the best-smelling annual report in the country? It`s the recently released McCormick & Co.`s. When you open the report, a heady aroma of allspice escapes from the pages. This is not the first time the spice and flavoring company has perked up mailboxes around the country. In 1977 it mailed out a cinnamon edition, considered a fragrant first for an annual report. How is it done? After the report is printed, a substance containing the scent is rolled over the pages. Since that first edition the company has mailed curry powder, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, clove and nutmeg reports to its shareholders.

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Found around town: Habey`s Cookies, a packaged assortment of delicious shapes from a New York City bakery. Quality ingredients are combined with a sense of humor to make these cookies unique. For example, the all-butter shortbread cookies come in tiny faces called Habey`s Babies and Babies Deluxe (with icing layers of caramel with ground pecans and imported Valrhona chocolate). The gingersnap cookies come in pairs called Tar Heels, each with a dab of blackberry preserves for the ``tar.`` A box of 21 assorted cookies is about $9, or two-cookie packs are about 80 cents in gourmet food shops, including Neiman-Marcus, 737 N. Michigan Ave., Foodstuffs in Glencoe and Zambranas, 2346 N. Clark St.

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Nancy J. Korondan of Aurora is a finalist in the National Chicken Cooking Contest with her chicken-brussels sprouts casserole recipe. Korondan will compete in a final cookoff May 16 in Asheville, N.C., against 50 other finalists for a $10,000 first prize.

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Learn how to adapt your favorite recipes to low-fat, low-salt alternatives during a Heart-to-heart Cookery class by Sue Kadlec, a clinical dietitian, at 6:30 p.m. March 28 at Kerr Middle School cooking lab, 123d and Greenwood Streets, Blue Island. The $15 class is sponsored by St. Francis Hospital. For a registration form or information call 597-2000. Registration is limited.